Pillar of Salt
by Wofl
Summary: Genfic. Spoilers for Episode 3. Edcentric. Rated for slight gore. Angst.


Tinted, steeped in sin and stained. Edward looks up and sees only steel, the cold unforgiving faceplate, a sore substitute for flesh. Nose, eyes, ears, mouth - all gone. And this, this is his bidding, better than the will of God as sparks weave and twine, envelope the metal with their ethereal light. Power arcs beneath his fingers and he can _see!_ Faint, like the shimmer of heat rising from afire, just the shadow of an outline. Phantom hand reaches for him, the spectral screams lingering in his ears.

_"Brother!"_

He closes his eyes against hazes of black, against monsters rising and surrounding and pressing, pulling; encasing him like a tomb. He closes his eyes against he pop and snap that precedes a sickening noise of flesh tearing and the explosion of agony is nothing when his eyes are closed.

_Al. Al. Al. _

His mantra; everything else is null and void. Warm heart, soft smile, gentle fingers, deep expressive eyes; everything that makes his little brother, everything that makes Edward lover and yearn and worry and ache.

That. That cannot be taken away. He has given and lost and sacrifices and destroyed and the rewards are so _minimal_. Sacred possessions stolen; this he cannot forgive, forget impossible.

His power surges again, melding to his will. Price paid, gaping, gasping, blood stains, tremors of pain ignored as he claims his prize; snatches back as big a chunk of his brother as he can manage before the gate slams the cookie jar closed on his greedy hands. He howls, fury and rage and denial, when he realizes what has happened. He tilts his head back and choruses his hurt; a thousand voices, a thousand souls deprived and he sees, finally, the mess that he has made.

He clings, desperately, to his wounded shoulder, fingers blunt and merciless, digging into the gore. His fingertips lost to the gaping flesh and he focuses on the pain, breathes, fights not to pass out.

Gone. He shudders at the feeling of exposed bone beneath his digits; sappy strings of shredded muscles dangling like limp streamers in a haunted house. This is no mere bad dream, this is real and there is nothing _NOTHING_ he can do. Defeat, handed to him on a macabre platter of disembodied souls and twisted piles of organs and limbs.

He sees the basement, through the smoke and ozone that drifts hazily over the cold floor. It is chaos and anarchy and utter, utter failure. Crimson streaks across the concrete; he can no longer tell which is his and which came from his mangled Frankenstein.

And, amidst it all, lies the armor. Immobile, silent, nothing more than an inanimate object, a worthless heap of junk. Edward stares, unbelieving, willing just a twitch, some sing that there is anything left. Nothing. It looms, taunting him and Edward shivers, wavers, despairs. In the end, he is no better than anyone else valiant and foolhardy enough to try. His heart harbors the same ache of loss as theirs, his skills just as insufficient.

He can't even find the energy to cry, to mourn proper. He just gives up and curls in on himself as best he can and shakes. It's fitting, that he will die here, bleed to death amidst his fractured family. A grotesque mixture of elements gone wrong and a useless collection to steel; mother, brother…and…him. Torn.

He loses himself to this though, drowns himself in guilt until the blood loss can come to make him sleep. He doesn't hear the racket of metal against metal, but he hears his brother's voice, thinks _this is it._

The sweet voice of aching memory, soft kisses and laughter twines, continues, laced with panic, confusion, fear; not the words of someone who is lost, dead. Edward barely dares to hope, almost wishes it I is /I just his dreary imagination. So when he draws a shaky breath and raises his head, he half expects to see nothing.

Armor, a great hulking suit of metal. Frigid, unbending, a mockery of the human form. He winces from its sharp outline, something within screaming at the divine injustice, but when he forces himself to gaze at empty sockets, hang-dog posture, hand still clenched around his stump, it is all he can do not to look away and she his fear and unforgivable faults. He wants to turn and push his fault as far as humanly possible and deny.

He is afraid. Afraid of the fitted bits of steel and the deafening clanks of his brother's impromptu substitute body. They are terrifying, grating, shredding at his sanity, every reminder shooting and dancing before his face. _Look! Just look!_

Fish-tail emotions flick their way along, swimming, swishing back and forth in his mind. Frenzied like a salmon tossed into the air by a bear, breath caught and strangled, drowned by air, nothing to look forward to but claws and teeth, flesh snagged and ripped away, consumed greedily. Horror, sorrow, he doesn't know whether to flee as best he's able or to fall to the floor amidst his salt-streaked shortcomings.

Neither option seems appropriate. He discards both half-chased fantasies, hellish nightmares; what can he call the slivers of free will that gather and shove against the core of his brain? Flesh trembles, quivers race across the hacked planes of his frame and his eyes alone refuse to waver.

He just maintains eye contact, (it hurts even to _look_) and trembles as he whispers the only words he can. Pointless, ineffective, hollow syllables that fix nothing.

_"I'm sorry, Al."_

It's the best he can do.


End file.
